Mount Forest

"High, healthy, happy," says the town's longtime motto. It's one of Ontario's highest towns, with a classic main street, a famous summer fireworks festival, and farm country in every direction. The town sits near the headwaters of the South Saugeen River, where Highway 6 meets Highway 89, and its Main Street library is one of the county's five Carnegie libraries. Every July the Mount Forest Fireworks Festival brings four days of music, food and amusements, a classic car show of more than 500 cars on Main Street, and fireworks on the Friday and Saturday nights. The Mount Forest and District Sports Complex, opened in 2008, has an NHL-sized rink, an indoor walking track and ball diamonds, and the Mount Forest Patriots play Junior C hockey in town.

Land was set aside for a town when the Garafraxa Road, now Highway 6, was surveyed from Arthur toward Georgian Bay in the 1840s. The settlement was first called Maitland Hills, as a surveyor thought the river here was the Maitland; it is the Saugeen, and in 1853 the town plot was laid out as Mount Forest, for its forest and its height of about 430 metres. It had enough people to become a village by 1864 and was a town by 1879. In 1999 it joined the Township of Wellington North.

The 2021 census counted about 2,250 homes in Mount Forest. About three in five are single detached houses, and about one in four are in apartment buildings under five storeys. Row houses and semi-detached houses make up most of the rest. About three in ten homes were built in 1960 or earlier and more than a quarter between 1961 and 1980. About one in five were built between 1981 and 2000, and about one in five in 2001 or later.

Highway 6 runs south to Arthur, about 24 km away, and on to Guelph, about 65 km by road, a drive of about 55 minutes. North, Highway 6 leads to Owen Sound, about 71 km, also about 55 minutes. Highway 89 runs west to Harriston, about 17 km, and east toward Shelburne.

The Mount Forest and District Sports Complex at 850 Princess Street has the arena and an indoor walking track. Hutchinson Park and the Lion Merv Weber Playground on Queen Street, the Bill Moody Lions Playground on Wellington Street East, the Lion Roy Grant Pool Park on Parkside Drive and Murphy's Park, with its picnic shelter, are spread through town, and the skateboard park is at Campbell deVore Park. The Mount Forest branch of the Wellington County Library is at 118 Main Street North. The Louise Marshall Hospital is in town, and the Trillium 10K road race is run every May.

• Victoria Cross Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the town, on Durham Street West.
• Palmerston Public School — JK to Grade 8. The French immersion school for Mount Forest, in Palmerston.
• Wellington Heights Secondary School — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school for Wellington North, on Sligo Road East.
• Norwell District Secondary School — Grades 9 to 12. The French immersion secondary school for Mount Forest, in Palmerston.
• St. Mary Catholic School — JK to Grade 8. The Catholic elementary school for the town, on Parkside Drive.
• St. James Catholic High School — Grades 9 to 12. The Catholic secondary school for Mount Forest, in Guelph.